Business and Money Tips

The front 10 seats are reserved for the hungry ghosts What a strange title! What has this Singapore superstitious Hungry Ghost Festival got to do with modern professional management? The Toaists Chinese in Singapore believed that when people die, they become ghosts and live in hell. Once a year, such ghosts have a one-month holiday when they can come up and roam the streets and enjoy themselves to relive the experiences of human life. Such a month falls on the lunar 7th month every year.  They are called Hungry Ghosts because they are hungry for food, entertainment, money and most importantly, attention. Imagine if your neighbourhood suddenly sees an influx of people, surely there will be disorder, disturbances and even chaos?  Would you call the police for help?  What the Chinese do in 7th month is not to call the police, but instead get together to do praying and offerings (food and paper-made things like money, house and cars) to them throughout the entire 7th month.  To ke

Trainers teach trainees many skills but as a full-time trainer since 2001, I realize that the following 7 skills are not taught in most training programs, including SkillsFuture courses. But they are so important that if you know them, you will turn yourself from stress to success. 1. Be Lovely People teach you to love others, but if you are lovely, people will love you and this will make your life much easier. To be lovely is not just to be cute, it is also about being open and generous in receiving love. Like I always enjoy being praised because people think I am lovely from the pictures that I post on my Facebook . 2. Sleep at Work Sleeping at work means knowing when to let go and be 'not conscious', and pretending not to know when you know everything. That to me is mastering work!  3. Time Squeezing Effective time squeezing is in, time management is out. Time squeezing is to make use of tiny pockets of time (less than 2 minutes) to do useful things like updating your

(Note: This article appeared on The Straits Times on 5 May 2015 page 18, you can also read this at here ) Are you a good boss?  Given a chance, would your employees want to work for you?  Most importantly, are you able to make people better than themselves, or make people better for just yourself?   Make no mistake: the best bosses could also be bad bosses at times.  The key to being a good boss is  how to Be the best, and learn from the Worst .  Taken from our all-time best-seller new course  How to Be a Great Boss  and books from Robert I Sutton, there are 5 things that you have to do: Don't Crush the Bird .  Managing people is like holding a bird in your hand.  If you hold it too tightly, you'll kill it. But if you let loose, you'll lose it.  Indeed managers that are too aggressive will damage relationships and managers that are too passive and not assertive enough will get people climb over their heads.  Like salt in a dish, too much will overwhelm the dish

(Find out the 6 keys to business success at  here ) Have you ever asked yourself these questions,  "Why do I have so much work?" "Why is this happening to me?" "I am not good enough, why they don't know this?" "Why is my life so hard?" "I should just give up, shouldn't I?" If you are like most people, you have asked yourself the above questions many times in your life. Scientists said that we have over 60,000 thoughts every day, and 90% of our thoughts are repeated thoughts. So if you are repeating negative thoughts, you are telling yourself you are no good 54,000 times! Doesn't it make sense that we should practice positive thoughts until they become a habit? Then we would have repeat success 54,000 times a day! There is only one way that you can repeat positive thoughts every day -  Ask yourself empowering questions EVERYDAY .  This is because your brain will find the answers to your questions without fai

Whether you are in management or sales , one of the most powerful ways to get people to follow you is to give people things that are low cost (or even zero cost) to you but high perceived value to them .  The 13 most popular such things to give to people include: Service, especially service that has a high perceived value.  Like we often give to our selected prospects a free Training Needs Analysis or Business Diagnostic session worth $298.  Do not give free service that you normally charge people, for this will cheapen your image Buy 2 Get 1 Free .  This beats 20% or 30% discount, for there is a high perceived value when people can get more without paying Praise, especially sincere and specific praise from the heart Acknowledgement and Validation , as most people see this as their worth Apology , especially when you may not be in the wrong, but you are the first to apologize.  People do appreciate your humility and seriousness when you apologize Ideas that can help them im

Are you a good boss?  Given a chance, would your employees want to work for you?  Most importantly, are you able to make people better than themselves, or make people better for just yourself?   Make no mistake: the best bosses could also be bad bosses at times.  The key to being a good boss is how to Be the best, and learn from the Worst .  Taken from our all-time best-seller new course How to Be a Great Boss and books from Robert I Sutton, there are 5 things that you have to do: Don't Crush the Bird .  Managing people is like holding a bird in your hand.  If you hold it too tightly, you'll kill it. But if you let loose, you'll lose it.  Indeed managers that are too aggressive will damage relationships and managers that are too passive and not assertive enough will get people climb over their heads.  Like salt in a dish, too much will overwhelm the dish; too little is similarly distracting; but just the right amount of salt will leave an unforgettable experience.

(This article was published in the Straits Times on 24 Feb 2016 page C31) As time passes, you fall into your comfort zone and feel bored at work. You think of changing your job. Instead of changing your job, why not think of new ways to make your work more exciting?  As we know, many employees get too engrossed in the daily grind. They just want to get the job done and fail to consider if what they are dong is really necessary.  A lack of mndfullness is a sure sign an employee needs to up the ante at work. When you find yourself becoming absent-minded, it means that are getting too stressed or bored at work.  Before you decide to leave your job, find out if the problem lies with your job or with yourself. If you are the problem, don't need to blame yourself. Just acknowledge it and move on.  There are 5 ways that you too can fall in love with your job and excel at work: Learn something new every day and better still, help others and you'll learn more in the proce

Are you a good boss?  Given a chance, would your employees want to work for you?  Most importantly, are you able to make people better than themselves, or make people better for just yourself?   Make no mistake: the best bosses could also be bad bosses at times.  The key to being a good boss is  how to Be the best, and learn from the Worst .  Taken from our all-time best-seller new course  How to Be a Great Boss  and books from Robert I Sutton, there are 5 things that you have to do: Don't Crush the Bird .  Managing people is like holding a bird in your hand.  If you hold it too tightly, you'll kill it. But if you let loose, you'll lose it.  Indeed managers that are too aggressive will damage relationships and managers that are too passive and not assertive enough will get people climb over their heads.  Like salt in a dish, too much will overwhelm the dish; too little is similarly distracting; but just the right amount of salt will leave an unforgettable experienc

In 1965 when Singapore went independent, it's per capital income was US$1,500.  In 2014, it has grown to US$59,000.  Many people would consider Lee Kuan Yew as the father of modern Singapore for he is the one that turned Singapore from third world to first world in 4 decades.  But is this what Lee himself consider as his greatest achievement? Lee revealed to us that his greatest achievement was actually able to combine what Easterners and Westerners do: marry the woman you love and love the woman you marry. It appeared that Lee's wife was more than a wife. During the early years of his career in the 1950s when Lee was still in the opposition, Lee's wife was supporting the entire family with her income as an owner of a law firm Lee and Lee.  Lee's wife also took good care of the family and brought up three children very well.  Their eldest son Lee Hsien Loong has been Singapore's Prime Minister since 2004.   Being dyslexic, Lee relied on his wife to help to

Customers are getting sick and tired of being bombarded with marketing and selling messages.  Many of them are crying, "Leave me alone".  It seems that the usual way of aggressive and persuasive selling does not work anymore. Indeed Sell Without Selling is the new way to sell.  There are 7 ways to do so easily: Provide a checklist that helps them to go through what are the necessary and good-to-have things Serve them really well , and go all the way to serve even when they don't buy.  Seven out of ten people will feel guilty and end up buying if you serve them with all your heart with no intention of closing the sale! Let your clients do the talking: show them testimonials and past track records and let them decide if they too want to enjoy what others are having Educate your customers on the right way to do things, hint but never mention buying from you is the right choice Let them taste early success , like giving them a free trial with totally no obligatio

Are you a good boss?  Given a chance, would your employees want to work for you?  Most importantly, are you able to make people better than themselves, or make people better for just yourself?   Make no mistake: the best bosses could also be bad bosses at times.  The key to being a good boss is  how to Be the best, and learn from the Worst .  Taken from our all-time best-seller new course  How to Be a Great Boss  and books from Robert I Sutton, there are 5 things that you have to do: Don't Crush the Bird .  Managing people is like holding a bird in your hand.  If you hold it too tightly, you'll kill it. But if you let loose, you'll lose it.  Indeed managers that are too aggressive will damage relationships and managers that are too passive and not assertive enough will get people climb over their heads.  Like salt in a dish, too much will overwhelm the dish; too little is similarly distracting; but just the right amount of salt will leave an unforgettable experienc